Some software applications render data, such as an audio stream or a video clip, on one or more timelines. For example, a five-minute movie trailer created using 30 frames per second (“FPS”) can be represented on a timeline of 9000 frames (i.e., 5 minutes×60 seconds/minute×30 FPS=9000 frames) using conventional techniques. However, a timeline can be, and often is, too long to fit in a display screen (“screen”). In some conventional techniques, if each frame is displayed using one pixel, 9000 pixels are needed to display 9000 frames. If a timeline of 9000 pixels is displayed horizontally on a typical screen of 1024 pixels wide, the timeline can require nine screens for a complete display, but be limited to a single screen. Using a single screen, conventional techniques are restricted to showing 1/9th of the timeline, excluding other components, such as sub-screens and tool buttons.
In some conventional techniques, applications often use more than one pixel to display a frame. For example, some conventional applications display a frame with at least five pixels. In these applications, the timeline for a 30-FPS (i.e., frame-per-second), five-minute duration video clip with 9000 frames is at least 45000 pixels long (9000 frames×5 pixels/frame). Thus, the typical screen can display at most 1/45th of the timeline. As a conventional example, if a video clip is two hours long in duration, a timeline can be 1,080,000 pixels long, which allows for only 1/1080th of the timeline to be displayed on a screen. Thus, a user must scroll or move a vertical or horizontal slide bar, scroll wheel or arrow, or other on-screen element to see the rest of the timeline. This can lead to time-consuming, labor-intensive editing, reviewing, and navigation of a file such as those described above.
In some conventional techniques, navigating or scrolling through a long timeline is frustrating and time-consuming. Regardless of whether a movie is divided into portions (e.g., chapters, acts, scenes) the timelines associated with the various portions of a movie can be long and require substantial screen space to display. Further, conventional screens are unable to display these timelines. Further, when editing a movie, audio clip, or animation, some segments have been finalized and require no further editing, but are continuously displayed, thus consuming limited screen space. Conventional solutions that display these unnecessary segments of a timeline are limited and typically require excessive scrolling through finalized segments to get to a non-finalized segment.
Thus, a solution for managing timelines without the limitations of conventional techniques is needed.